My ethical quandary came in the stuffy confines of the Hearnes Center on a breezy October day. I was covering a University of Missouri volleyball match for the Columbia Missourian last fall. Missouri lost an ugly match, 3-0, to Louisiana State. A straightforward, down-and-out loss. This story angle was a no-brainer. I interviewed the team’s libero about it after the game. She candidly expressed her disappointment and called it one of the Tigers’ worst games of the season, and told me it made her angry that they had lost, all pretty expected reactions. I returned to my seat at press row to type up my story. About fifteen minutes later, while I was still sitting there, that same player emerged from the locker room. She walked over to the row directly in front of where I was sitting and began talking to one of the team’s operations coordinators. What I heard next was a profanity-laden rant regarding Missouri’s poor performance. I listened, shocked, from a few feet away until the libero left. The dilemma: Do I report the rant in my story?

Unequivocally, I had a legal right to do so. The rant was in a public space where the player had no reasonable expectation of privacy. But I ultimately decided not to report it. The main ethical issue here was one of news value; in other words, was the rant important to the story? I thought back to the second pillar of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics: minimize harm.  Part of the code states, “Recognize that legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish and broadcast.” The code also mentions treating people and subjects with basic respect, and that private figures have more of a right to control information released about themselves than public figures do. The volleyball player in question was pretty well-known on campus, mostly due to the fact that the previous season the team had gone undefeated. The libero was a star player for Missouri. Previously, the Missourian had reported on her when she was charged with a DUI. Based on these factors, I concluded that she was not a private figure.

The two stakeholders in this situation were the athlete and I. The one with the most at stake was the athlete, since her personal reputation could be damaged. The libero could be subject to discipline from Mizzou Athletics as a short-term consequence. In the long-term, her outburst could cost her a job in the future if a potential employer were to uncover her profane remarks with a Google search. By publishing the rant, I would be putting my relationship with the player and the volleyball team at risk and possibly damaging the Missourian’s relationship with the organization going forward.

Using the SPJ Code of Ethics as a guideline, I concluded that there was no actual benefit to reporting the rant; it would not give the readership any new vital information. The sentiment of anger and disappointment the libero expressed to me in the earlier interview was honest, and was the same one she expressed in her outburst. The only difference was the addition of some more colorful language. I did not feel I was changing the nature of the story by omitting the rant.

It’s worth noting that the main thing that caused me to even call the publication of the rant into question was the presence of profanity. The Missourian publishes certain profane words and edits out others, so I wasn’t necessarily worried about the act of publishing expletives. For some reason, the profanity raised little red flags in my head that said this was important. If the rant had been just as impassioned, but without the swearing, would I have even been interested in it? Was the profanity the only reason I was even considering the rant as newsworthy? The effect of profanity on news judgment is something that I think is highly subjective and situational. While there are some situations that would definitely be considered newsworthy across the board — a nun or world leader cussing, for example — it is difficult to pin down who is culturally “allowed” to be profane and who is not. In the same SPJ “minimize harm” statute, the code states that journalists should “avoid pandering to lurid curiosity, even if others do.” Including the profanity in my story would have been a stunt simply for attention, making a mountain out of a molehill. The volleyball player was a 22-year-old college student; viewed in that light, it is not unusual for young people to swear as an expression of emotion. The situation was also one that warranted her frustration, so it’s not like it was completely unprovoked.

On the flipside, I would like to consider this same question as if I had been reporting on Melissa Click, the MU professor who was fired after making inflammatory remarks on multiple occasions during the protests this fall. Click’s remarks, including her use of the f-bomb directed at police, were caught on video, but if I had been there covering it for print, would I have reported the profanity on the spot? Click is a faculty member, a position that holds a significant amount of influence over students and other professors. I believe that a faculty member swearing at a police officer is uncharacteristic enough that it is newsworthy. Whether fairly or not, professors are held to a higher standard than students in terms of conduct. I also have to take into account the differing environments for both the volleyball player and Click. Although Click’s language did indeed match the intensity of the environment and thus was not unprovoked, I think that any protester (student, faculty, citizen or otherwise) swearing at a police officer is noteworthy because of the anti-authoritarian atmosphere it represents. Click’s outburst was in an escalating situation in direct conflict with another person, specifically a person of authority. The athlete’s was an internal disappointment being vented to a confidant. In Click’s case, I would have reported the use of profanity based on the environment and Click’s status within the community. For the libero, in the end, while the emotion behind the rant was newsworthy, the language used in it was inconsequential.

If I had the chance to make this decision over again, I might have discussed with an editor whether I should have included one line alluding to the outburst, such as: “The libero echoed her frustration in an explicit outburst to a student manager long after the Hearnes Center had emptied.” I think this line would have added another layer of context to the team’s perception of the loss, and would avoid quoting the profanity simply for clickbait.

I think a lot of journalists feel like we are a protected, privileged class, and that we should take advantage of that power whenever possible. It’s true that the press does have a lot of power in terms of exposing wrongdoing and holding people accountable. But something this experience solidified for me is that we have a responsibility not to abuse this power. Publishing something just to flex my journalistic power is not reason enough.